• Live lectures and symposia will be recorded, and will be made available to all attendees as ‘on-demand presentations’ after they occur.

• Live Discussion Sessions: Small groups of speakers working in similar areas will be grouped together into a panel (theme groups), providing presenters and attendees an opportunity for live Q&A and discussion. These sessions will help replicate interactions that would occur at an in-person conference during question periods, coffee breaks, or during social events. Several different theme groups will run in parallel within each session in the schedule, so attendees can move between theme groups at their leisure.

• VOC Symposium: “Integrating organismal function and behaviour to understand how animals cope in a changing world”, chaired by Andrew Turko, with presentations by Martha Muñoz (Yale U.), Shaun Killen (U. Glasgow), Jeremy Goldbogen (Stanford U.), and Giulia Rossi (U. Guelph)

• ZET Lecturer: Andrea Reid, Centre for Indigenous Fisheries, Institute for Oceans and Fisheries, U. British Columbia.

• EDI Workshop: “Combating racism in the lab and field: building an inclusive community with BIPOC colleagues”, chaired by Oana Birceanu and Joanna Wilson. The workshop will begin with presentations by a group of panelists, followed by an activity session in breakout rooms. Panelists will include Arig Al Shaibah (Associate Vice President, Equity and Inclusion, McMaster U.), Juliet Daniel (Acting Associate Dean, Faculty of Sciences, McMaster U.), Kalai Saravanamuttu (Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, McMaster U.), Rodrigo Narro Perez (School of Earth, Environment and Society, McMaster U.), and 2 members of the CSZ EDI committee (Heather Jamniczky and Julia Sunga). Attendees will be asked at registration to identify whether they will be attending the workshop to assist with organization.

• Social and networking events will occur at the end of the day, and will include the Trainee Networking Mixer. Other events may also be planned, and more details will be available as the conference approaches.

On-Demand Program

• Contributed oral and poster presentations will be made available ‘on-demand’ to attendees the week prior to the start of the live meeting, nominally on May 10. This will provide attendees with plenty of time to view these presentations at their leisure before the live program starts on May 17.

• Presenters of contributed oral and poster presentations will need to upload their presentations in advance.

  • Oral presentations will need to be pre-recorded and uploaded to the conference website as .mp4 or .mov files (10 minute limit) between May 7-9.

  • Posters will need to be uploaded to the conference website as pdf files between May 7-9. Poster presenters will also have the option of uploading a short poster presentation as an .mp4 or .mov file (3 minute limit).

  • Full details on how to upload files to the conference website will be provided to presenters before May 7.

• Presenters of pre-recorded oral presentations will be able to interact with and answer questions from conference attendees in two ways: (i) each presentation will have an associated text chat that will be live throughout the meeting; (ii) Live Discussion Sessions organized by theme with small groups of other presenters working in similar areas and open to all conference attendees (described in section on live program above). Presenters of pre-recorded oral presentations will be assigned to Live Discussion Sessions after the early bird deadline for abstract submission, and will be expected to participate in their assigned session.It may not be possible to include late abstracts requesting an oral presentation in these live discussion sessions.

• Poster presenters will be able to interact with conference attendees through a text chat that is live throughout the meeting.

• The Education Workshop and NSERC Workshops will be available as part of the on-demand program. Live Q&A sessions about NSERC Discovery Grants and NSERC Scholarships/Fellowships will also be carried out as part of the live program (details TBA).

Student and PDF Presentation Awards

• The competition for society-wide awards (Hoar and Presidents’ Awards) will occur in symposia in the live program (see above), and there will be time allowed for live Q&A after each oral presentation.

• Students competing for section-specific awards will deliver on-demand oral or poster presentations, as appropriate. In some cases, finalists for some awards may be grouped into award-specific Q&A sessions with other finalists, scheduled during the Live Discussion Sessions described in the live program above. These Q&A sessions will be open to all conference attendees.

• Students and postdocs wishing to be considered for these awards should indicate their desire to do so at the time of abstract submission (by selecting the appropriate box) at or before the early-bird deadline. There are additional requirements with specific deadlines for several of these presentation awards. See the CSZ awards website for the specific requirements and contact person for each award.

Please feel free to contact one of the conference co-chairs, Graham Scott and Grant McClelland, if you have any remaining questions about the 2021 virtual meeting.